


We Will Be Okay

by monstersanonymous



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: A severe lack of heterosexuals, Angst, Bronan, Canon Compliant, Coca Cola T-Shirt, Comfort, Explicit Panic Attack, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Healing, Henry being best boy, Kisses, M/M, Noah content, Post-The Raven King, a musty ass bed, kind of, mint - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:46:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24864772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monstersanonymous/pseuds/monstersanonymous
Summary: In the aftermath, they recover. Life's hard and there are bumps but they will overcome them together. The gang takes a few days to rest up and Blue struggles with the after effects of the final showdown.----------------------------------Do you remember—I will never hurt you. Never again.I can’t believe—I don’t know if I’ll ever sleep again.You will.What was it like? Death?----------------------------------alt: trauma babey
Relationships: Henry Cheng & Blue Sargent, Henry Cheng & Richard Gansey III, Noah Czerny & Richard Gansey III & Ronan Lynch & Adam Parrish & Blue Sargent, Richard Gansey III & Adam Parrish, Richard Gansey III & Ronan Lynch, Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent, Ronan Lynch & Blue Sargent, Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 8
Kudos: 76





	We Will Be Okay

**Author's Note:**

> I've never seen anyone really address the mental toll that the books would take on them immediately, especially not Blue and Gansey, so I wanted to show that. There is a described panic attack that important to the story. Please leave comments and kudos!!

Blue Sargent had been told her entire life that if she kissed her true love, he would die. She never doubted this fact, as she lived in a house of impossible things, but she believed it in a distant sense. For years she had no timeline. She didn’t know when she would fall in love. If she would fall in love. 

And then she did.

And there was so little time, and they were running out of time, and then there was no time left.

And Gansey was dead.

Blue remembers it in bits. There are pieces she can’t quite place and there are parts that are so clear. Too clear. She remembers Ronan, faced twisted in a snarl, melting into a sadness deeper than she’d ever seen on him.

_ He’s not an animal. _

She remembered Henry, torn between horrified and angry. Frustrated, confused.

_ Be magicians. _

She remembered Adam, thoughts passing too quickly to appear on his face. 

_ It might die for him.  _

She remembered Cabeswater, being reborn and then crumbing around them.    
She remembered dry eyes, tears used long ago and none left so shed. A feeling of knowing filling her body. Something that said, this is the moment.

_ Wake up. _

She didn’t leave him for three days. No one did. They huddled up in Monmouth, tired, quiet, traumatized. Ronan didn’t sleep. Adam wasn’t far behind. Chainsaw and Ronan’s weird goat child came to them, likely drawn to Ronan’s emotions. They were quiet too. Henry flitted between rooms, alternating staring at the various things in the former factory and texting constantly with someone on his phone. Blue assumed it was his various contacts, since they were well fed and treated by doctors who didn’t ask for questions or names. 

Maura and Calla swung by at seemingly random intervals. They were a comfort, but also understood that they needed space to process. 

Gansey slept for 13 hours. Blue sat with him the entire time, and if she slept, she didn’t notice. Ronan sat by the door, eyes watching him constantly, a still shadow of danger and worry. Adam sat with him, head occasionally slumping on to his shoulder for quick minutes of sleep. She thought she saw Noah, once. A wisp of impossibly blonde hair passing by the door, a smudgy face that didn’t seem to set quite into reality. But there wasn’t anything long enough to know for sure. She wanted to ask Ronan if he’d seen him. Ronan looked like he’d shatter into pieces if she did.

Gansey was the first to speak.

“Jane?” It was a whisper, because it couldn’t be fully spoken. His voice was dry and cracking from sleep and his eyes opened slowly. 

“Gansey.” That too was a whisper, but it was because she feared if she said it any louder this would all be a dream. He would disappear. 

He opened his mouth again. “I lo—”

“Gansey.” There was Adam, suddenly at his side. “You’re—” He didn’t finish speaking but they could all fill in the blanks.  _ You’re awake. You’re okay. You’re here. You’re alive.  _

“You look like shit.” Ronan supplied. His tone was joking and light, but his eyes were calculating. Concerned. They were surrounded by the worst circles Blue had ever seen on him, which would have been impressive given the person in question, but at the moment it was just sad.

Gansey managed a strange raspy laughter and Blue’s heart clenched.

“Gansey!” Henry shouted, suddenly bursting into the room, clutching a glass of water. Most of the water fell rather pathetically on to the floor but no one seemed to care. He thrust it into Gansey’s face. “Drink. You’ve been asleep for years.”

“Years, Mr. Cheng?”

“Years, Sir Gansey!”

“Shut the fuck up.” Ronan said. 

“It was 13 hours.” Adam added. 

Blue merely stroked the strands off of Gansey’s forehead as he drained the glass. Distantly, she was shocked that such a motion was natural to her, but on the forefront her mind was occupied with the newly awakened man.

“You need to brush your teeth,” she said fondly. “Your breath reeks.”

He went and did as much with little complaint, also adding in a shower after a tasteful comment from Ronan on the state of his odor. 

They didn’t do much that day. Gansey was weak from his ‘princess coma’ as Ronan called it and none of them quite felt like doing anything. They sat around and stared at things in Monmouth. When Henry said goodnight, all of them watched him disappear into Noah’s room. They didn’t protest, but there was mutual discomfort. Longing. Mourning. Ronan stood abruptly and locked eyes with Blue. She stared back, not sure what the challenge was but unwilling to back down. After a moment, he found whatever answer he needed and nodded stiffly.

“We’re going to bed.” he said. 

Adam blinked up at him, owlish and half asleep himself. “We are?” he asked, but didn’t resist when Ronan tugged on his wrist and dragged him to his room. The child had long since crashed underneath the couch. This was a significant upgrade from chewing on it as she had earlier that evening.

“Well, Jane, shall we retire as well?”

“You slept for half a day, do you really want to sleep again?” she asked him, turning her body to face him completely. 

His face caught somewhere in between something sad and something soft and warm. “No, but I think I’d like it very much if you’d come lay with me again.”

And how was she supposed to deny a request like that. 

The second day was better. Maura and Call dropped out breakfast, which they consumed startlingly fast. None of them had eaten the day before. They talked, a bit, the second day. Whispered conversations. 

_ Do you remember _ —

_ I will never hurt you. Never again.  _

_ I can’t believe _ —

_ I don’t know if I’ll ever sleep again. _

_ You will.  _

_ What was it like? Death? _

Maura and Calla took the Orphan Girl with them when they left. She kicked and screamed the second she was past the door and Ronan sat with her, mumbling words in Latin and cradling her in his arms. He looked paternal. Blue kind of wanted to cry.

After about five minutes, Adam joined them and they sat there on the ground, huddled and whispering words in a language Blue wished she knew.

“ _ Kerah. Magi.”  _ The girl cried.

“We’ll be okay.” Adam said. She could feel the truth in his words. They’ll be okay. They didn’t know when, or how, but they would be.

“Get going, brat.” Ronan said, voice a thousand times softer than his words. 

They had pizza for dinner. Henry and Adam paid, half and half. There was no fight about it, just agreement. None of them would have the energy to fight again for weeks. Ronan stood in front of the door to Noah’s room for a moment as they cleaned up to head to bed.

“Gansey.” he said, voice low. “He’s not coming back.” It wasn’t a question, but Gansey knew him better than that. He knew when it was hurt too much to ask.

“No. He’s not.” 

None of them slept well that night, but they all slept.

The third day was a day for cleaning up. Gansey insisted that they all wrote down their experience and personal points of views. 

“Go back as far as you think you’ll need to. I’d like to collect it all.”

“For what? So you can sell our fucked up lives off to some museum?” Ronan snarled.

“So that we never forget.”

Adam pinned him with a cool gaze. “I don’t think any of us will forget.” 

Blue simply grabbed a pen and a small stack of papers. Henry held out his hand. She handed another pen and more papers to him. 

They didn’t talk again until after dinner. Dinner had long since been cleaned away, but none of them were ready to retire. They had heavy words sitting on their tongues and no way to say them. Except for:

“Could you tell me about Noah?” Henry said.

“Noah?” she replied.

“You’ve mentioned him before but I,” he lowered his gaze. “I never met him.”   
They didn’t say anything. Where would you start with Noah? Blue didn’t know. His past? When she met him? When Gansey met him?

“Noah was fucking wild.” All eyes snapped to Ronan, who’s own gaze was on the ceiling. “Batshit crazy.”

Adam smiled, soft and nostalgic. “For every bad idea you came up with, he was there to back you.”

“They were amazing ideas, fuck you.”

“Noah, Ronan, and Adam once set up a spring board in the back of an abandoned pickup truck. Homemade, of course. It was supposed to launch them directly into a nearby pond, like a makeshift diving board.” Gansey said. 

“The pond was a lot shallower than we thought it was.”

“Oh fuck that, Noah and I knew exactly how shallow it was, that’s what made it fun.” 

And then they were laughing. Laughing felt like breathing for the first time. Laughing felt like having the lights flicked on in your parent’s creepy basement when you were eight and convinced there were monsters in there. 

They swapped stories, many of which Blue had never heard before, for hours into the night. They talked about how Ronan threw him out the window, which apparently was the result of an increasingly dangerous game of dare. They talked about his obsession with glitter and the time he convinced both Ronan and Gansey to cover their hair in it. Gansey swore he still saw sparkles fluttering down sometimes. Ronan said he could still feel the phantom itching. Adam talked about how Noah was easy to talk to. That they’d talk about nothing for hours. Blue said he was the most normal out of all of the boys. That she was glad he was her first kiss.

“He was you're  _ what? _ ” Henry cried. “I thought you had this whole curse thing going on?”

“That just affects me, though.”

“No, she said she wouldn’t kiss me either, when we were dating. Didn’t want to risk it.” 

“Is that why you broke up with her, Parrish?”

“I thought you said it was more of a mutual thing?” Gansey said.

Adam huffed. “It  _ was. _ ” He turned to Blue. “Right?”

She let loose more laughter. “Yeah. It was. And Noah was a  _ ghost _ , I couldn’t kill him.” Her heart clenched when she thought of her curse, but she refused to let it deter her. “I wanted to try. I didn’t think I’d ever kiss someone. So he offered.”

Gansey leaned back in his chair. “Huh. Well, that something I never thought we’d have in common.”

Henry’s eyes lit up and he nearly fell off the edge of his own chair in his haste to lean forward. “Richard Campbell Gansey III. Did you have your first kiss with a  _ man _ ?”

Gansey squirmed in his seat. “Well, yes, he was a boy really, not sure if you could call him a man, quite honestly, it's the 21st century, it shouldn’t be that shocking—”

“I thought you were straight!” Henry shouted gleefully. 

“Well, I’m not sure what I am, but a kiss is a kiss? I mean, the kiss with Blue was wonderful, until it wasn’t, but—”

“She’s your soulmate, asshole, I’d hope it’d feel different.” Ronan grumbled.

“Thank you, I think?” Blue said.

“Uh, well,” Adam started. His face went red and he scratched the back of his neck. “That makes three of us?” 

There was a beat of silence.

“What!?” Henry shouted. 

“You never told me!” Gansey cried.

“Fucking yes!” Blue shrieked.

“I was having a confusing time, okay? I wasn’t sure of my sexuality, and Noah said he could help me out and. Well, he asked me first. It was. . . nice.”

“Ronan Lynch.” Henry’s attention swiveled to the man who was now looking like he was trying to stuff himself between the couch cushions. 

“Fuck off, Cheng. Eat a dick.”

“Please, please,  _ please,  _ tell me your first kiss was Noah. It would make my year.” 

“It wasn’t. Fuck off.”

Henry’s grin flickered for only a moment. “Who was it? Who. Was. It?”

Ronan shifted again and made some intelligible gurgling noise. But his eyes. His eyes flickered over to Adam, for a split second.

Blue face cracked in half with a smile. “Adam Parrish.”

Adam froze, face turned away from her. “Yes?” he said meekly.

“Adam.”

“That’s me.”

“ _ Adam. _ ” she said again. 

He sighed heavily. “Yes.”

Blue shouted. “Ah! I knew it! Oh my God!” She clapped her hands together and cackled almost evilly. 

Gansey and Henry looked back and forth between the two. 

“What? What’s happening? Oh, is this about—” Gansey started.

“Tell them, Adam.” she said smugly. “The people deserve to know.”

“We very much do.” Henry added.

“Fuck all of you.” was Ronan’s comment. He pushed himself into a more upright position and looked away, burning a hole in the wall with his gaze. To anyone else he would seem furious. To them, he was quite obviously embarrassed. “Parrish was my first kiss, okay? Shut up about it.”

They did not, in fact, shut up about it. Gansey had a million questions, which were all, when, where, since when, is this ongoing, I mean I thought you had a thing for him, and he for you but it didn’t occur to me that it was your  _ first _ , I assume that does make sense, of course, and so on.

Henry also had a million questions, but they were along the lines of, how good was it, how far did you go, is Parrish your type, which one of you is more assertive because if I really had to guess I’d say Parrish, I know most people would say you, but I think you’d be far too shy to actually make the first move, etc. etc. Ronan nearly hit him. Adam looked like he’d rather die than be there right then.

Blue was happy.

She didn’t have any other words for it. Life was fucked up, they were fucked up, she didn’t know what the future was going to look like, but  _ god  _ she was happy. She was smiling and she was laughing and she felt like she was wrapped in a fuzzy blanket. And it was all  _ them _ . Her boys. They were her fuzzy blanket. And she swore to never say that out loud, Ronan would tease her endlessly. Or get impossibly soft, she didn’t know which was worse. 

If only the happiness lasted all night.

They had to go to bed at some point, not even Gansey and Ronan’s insomnia could stand against hours of belly laughter. They were tired, but a buzzing, warm tired. She let Gansey lead her by her hand to his bedroom with his rather pitiful mattress. She hated the mattress and she loved it. It was undeniably Gansey’s, but it was also uncomfortable as fuck and she always wanted to burn it when she woke up. Gansey wrapped her up in his arms and she let herself bury her nose in the crook of his neck. He smelled like Chinese take-out and mint. It was a terrible combination. She couldn’t get enough of it. His lips pressed against her hair, soft cautious, questioning. She leaned into it.

Gansey lifted her hands and pressed gentlemanly kisses to the back of her hands and she giggled slightly. Next were her cheeks, forehead, eyelids. Quiet promises, reassurances. Something almost like  _ hello. _

_ Hi. I’m here. I’m with you. I love you. I’m alive. Hi. _

Her hands found his jaw and his found her chin and her head was tilting, tilting, tilting

_ Blue, kiss me. _

She couldn’t breathe.

_ Gansey, limp in her arms. _

Gansey, saying something. His lips were moving.

_ Gansey, eyes cold. _

Gansey, eyes bright and concerned.

_ Gansey, dead. _

Gansey, in front of her, shaking her by the shoulders. “Jane? Jane?  _ Blue _ , can you hear me?”

“I can’t—” she tried as she clawed at her chest. She was on the ground. Had she fallen? Since when had she been on the ground? She didn’t know. Her chest hurt. It was too loud and too quiet and there was too  _ much _ everywhere all at once.

“Blue!”

_ Gansey.  _ Blue took a breath. Another. Her hands were shaking. Another breath. 

The door slammed open. Ronan hovered in the doorway, face dark and frightened. Adam stood behind him like a light shadow, a contrast to the darkness that seemed to leak from Ronan. If it were any other night, Blue would have made fun of the too small Coca-Cola t-shirt stretching across Ronan’s shoulders, but at the moment she was still fighting for air so she let it slide. Henry appeared behind them shortly after, the three of them wearing matching worried expressions. 

“We heard a loud noise.” was Adam’s explanation.

“She fell, I don’t know, we were just— she was hyperventilating, Jane? Can you hear me?” Gansey stammered out. Henry pushed past the other two boys and knelt next to her.

“Blue, I’m going to hold your hands okay? Can you nod if that's okay?” he said slowly. 

She nodded.

“Gansey, I need you to move. You don’t have to go far, I just need to be where you are.” Henry replaced Gansey in front of her and his hands wrapped loosely around her wrists. He overturned one hand and pressed his fingertips to her pulse. The other hand was lifted to rest in the center of his chest. “I’m going to take some breaths and I need you to take them with me, yeah? Ready, in, hold, out. Good.” She could feel his lungs working beneath his fingers and she matched his breathing. In, hold, out. In, hold, out. 

Eventually the world was not quite as loud and her heart loosened its chokehold on her throat. 

“I’m okay.” she croaked. Henry backed away and Gansey was back, hands fluttering rapidly around her, as if they didn’t know what to do. She grabbed them and clutched them to her chest. His cheek came to rest gently upon her head and she tucked herself further into him. 

“Good?” he asked softly.

“I’m sorry.” she said. 

Ronan grunted behind her. She hadn’t noticed they were still there. “It’s a panic attack, Sargent. You can’t control them.” And then he left, as quickly as he came.

Adam watched him go and then turned back to her. “He’s glad you’re okay. When we heard someone fall, it—” He didn’t finish his sentence, instead opting to pat her gently on the shoulder and follow after Ronan. 

“I trust that you’ve got her?” Henry asked.

“We’ll be okay.” Gansey promised. Henry nodded and left them alone.

He was stroking her hair lightly, absentmindedly. She felt a little like crying.

“Fuck, I’m sorry.” Blue said.

She felt him shake his head. “Don’t apologize. Ronan’s correct, panic attacks are uncontrollable unless we identify the triggers and work out way up to being able to work around them.” His voice was scholarly, reciting facts from a textbook, but there was something deeper in it. Personal experience. Memories. 

They stayed like that for a while, curled on the ground in simple quiet. The sun had begun to make the sky blush when Gansey broke the silence.

“Do you know what—” he cleared the throat. “The trigger?”

Blue let out a shaky breath. “Yeah.” There was a long pause as he waited for her too elaborate. “It was. . . right before you. . .” 

“Before I went to kiss you.” he finished.

She didn’t have to say anything for him to know he was right. 

“I just, you  _ died,  _ Gansey. I killed you.”

“You didn’t kill me.”

“Sure, because it was only a coincidence that you died immediately after kissing me.”

“Your curse killed me, not you. I still don’t know how that came to be, I’d like to learn, though, I’ll need to look into the books—”

“Gansey.”

“My point is, you didn’t kill me. There was no murder intent and I came back.” He pulled back far enough to look her in the eyes. “I’m here. We served our purpose and did what we had to do.”

Blue closed her eyes. “What if it happens again?”

“It won’t.”

She jerked away from him, eyes flying open. “You don’t  _ know that _ . I can’t lose you, I won’t!” Her voice cracked. “Not again.”

Gansey’s hands cupped her cheeks. “It won’t. I know it.”

Blue wanted to argue, to fight, to say there was no proof, but she came from a world where sometimes you just know. And she knew that Gansey wouldn’t lie to her. And she trusted him. But still— “I’m scared.”

“That’s okay.” he said, smiling softly. His glasses were crooked and he looked impossibly human. “It’s okay.” 

Her hands gripped his arms tight enough to be painful. She met his eyes, looking for hesitance, fear, anything to say this was a bad idea. She found nothing of the sort. She only saw warmth and trust. Open, unconditional trust. 

She leaned forwards and kissed him. 

When she pulled away, he was smiling at her. “I love you.” he said.

She kissed him again.

**Author's Note:**

> haha yeahhh so that's happened. Let me know what you think in the comments or message me on tumblr @monstersanonymous


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